Books about Politics

I heard this book on audio CD read by the author himself and it was probably the best way to listen to this excellently written narrative of Obama's family from his grandparents to the present day. The author takes us across the world from Kansas to Hawaii to Indonesia to Kenya. The book is also a wonderful perspective into racial relations and how a minority tends to analyze every action, glance or word from the majority - an aspect which can be frustrating and self-defeating. Obama also shows how following one's dreams can change a person with regard to his roots, culture, community and friends, regardless of which continent you are on. This is not a political book - it is deeply moral and thought-provoking. For me, who has spent every third of my life in different countries, it feels intensely personal.

Tags: biography politics

Obama provides a close look at his life in politics, including various elections and his experiences in the US Senate. He talks at length about his ideas and various public policy matters. Obama talks about ordinary people and the challenges they face in achieving the American Dream. The book is written in a very conversational tone. Highly political issues are handled with great maturity.

Tags: politics biography

"The Prince" is an all-time reviled book and the term "Machiavellian" is closely associated with evil and cunning. But read it and you will find that it is astonishingly relevant to our times, especially world politics and business competition. Machiavelli became notorious because he put on paper what many people actually think and he put his focus on the ends instead of the means. There is evil in this world and people exhibit selfish, ungrateful and destructive behavior. For someone to succeed as a leader in the real world, it is necessary to expect and prepare for it. Modern issues like the Iraq War and Business Outsourcing can be analyzed through the lens of this book and it is interesting to see what answers they reveal. The only minus of this book is its use of long-forgotten examples from the times of the author. You cannot fault the author for doing that, of course, as he wouldn't have known that centuries later, people would be still be reading him.

Tags: leadership politics ethics

A quite interesting book on how Republicans captured the high ground on the cultural issues and succeeded in becoming the dominant party in the United States.

Tags: sociology politics

A funny, outrageous look at politics and democracy in the United States of America. I heard the audio tape, which offers the voices of the Jon Stewart crew, but apparently the book has some good illustrations. So you may want to take a look at that. Obviously, the content is politically incorrect and risque, so if you are easily offended, you may want to stay away.

Tags: politics humor

"Blunder" is a book about "cognition traps", which are mental conditions that prevent us from understanding a situation clearly and lead us into making wrong decisions. In contrast to most books of this type, the author has taken many examples from geopolitics instead of relying only on business stories.

But I am not really sure that even if we know about cognition traps, we can prevent ourselves from being trapped by them. There will always be blind spots caused by our belief systems and the people in our circle of trust. The best way perhaps is to broaden our circle of information and trust and ensure that we are exposed to people and information sources that have different viewpoints. The greatest danger is certainty and the solution is doubt.

Tags: psychology politics

It is somewhat tough to read Friedman's book after reading Matt Taibbi's takedown. Despite that, I think this is a good book on its merits because it discusses many aspects of climate change and explains many different initiatives that can be taken to protect our planet. It is worth a read.

However, Friedman makes a mistake when he tries to conflate too many different ideas into a grand theory. Friedman's thesis is that higher oil revenues prop up dictators and therefore environmentalism is good for democracy. But elsewhere he states that oil demand will only go up in the short run even if energy conserving mechanisms are put into place. So it is not possible to reduce oil revenues. So why confuse the issue by introducing democracy promotion into an environmental discussion.

The problem is that environmentalism is not Friedman's primary strengths. He has primarily been an analyst for political and economic themes and his foray into issues of climate change and energy is that of an amateur trying to learn the ropes. And hence, the paradox of the book. It is a good introduction to the topic because the author is still in a learning mode. At the same time, it has fluid concepts and lacks the purity, understanding and detail of a Jeffrey Sachs book.

Tags: economics sociology politics

This contains a series of New York Times articles written by Tom Friedman on the Middle East and the Arab/Muslim World before and after 9/11. It ends with a commentary on the problems that contribute to the negative attitudes towards the United States. It contains discussions with leaders and ordinary people through the Muslim world. The author believes that only internal political reform within these countries would help combat the menace of terrorism. While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most visible contributors to ill-will against the United States, poor economic progress and lack of democratic governments play a much deeper role. While it is a good book, the use of the NYT articles has made the book repetitive at many places. Instead, the author could have written a more coherent and concise book assimilating the content in those articles.

Tags: economics politics

Bill Clinton's biography covers a lot of ground from his childhood to the last years of his presidency. Many events of his public and private lives are covered here. He also vents a lot of anger at his opponents in the impeachment crisis. However, despite the size of the book, some events are not really provided the amount of detail they deserve. In fact, it might have been a better idea to have written different books touching on various periods of life. For example, one book on the Presidency, one on the Governorship, etc.

Tags: politics biography

Joe Klein takes a shot at the lack of spontaneity in today's political leaders, comparing it to the moral leadership of past heroes like Robert Kennedy. The book covers several of the elections in the last few decades and bemoans how the spotlight of the media (especially television) has ended straight and honest talk by politicians. Most of the events will be common knowledge to anyone following political campaigns, but Klein brings his refreshing perspective and viewpoint as in the case of his observations on Howard Dean.

Tags: politics

This book has inspired many generals and business people. One does need to spend time interpreting the ideas in the book and relating to daily experience. Unlike a modern book, it does not go into explaining its edicts. Only some of the ideas are really applicable to business dealing with competition.

Tags: leadership politics

A look at the extreme right-wing agenda and contemporary issues such as the Iraq War, Social Security reform, etc.

Tags: politics

Zakaria writes about a world where America's world dominance is threatened by the rise of new world powers in China and India, and by changing political alliances and economic events. He sees a multi-polar world where America's influence will be decreased because of the rise of regional powers. It is a good book, but the author should have stopped at analysis. He ventures into recommendations and predictions, always a risky business in an election year, but especially uncertain after the stock market crisis in late 2008. It is not the author's fault (few could have foretold such events), but the book does suffer from a feeling of being out-of-date.

Tags: politics

This is a well-written account of global warming - the evidence, the possible effects and the actions that can be taken to reduce them. The book presents an alarming picture of the economic, political and environmental consequences of global warming. The weakness in the book comes from its lack of detail in managing the increasing world-wide consumption of fossil fuels, particularly from developing countries. A more comprehensive statistical analysis of energy needs compared to growth prospects of world nations would have made good forecasting.

Tags: science politics

A prescription for the Republican Party to recover from their poor public support after the 2006 elections. The author talks about many issues that currently favor the Democrats and how Republicans can win the argument on them. The author's intentions are good, but the remedies are not very radically different and, hence may not lead to electoral success.

Tags: politics